When it comes to technology, I am what is known as a late adopter. With regard to new innovations, I’m always one of the last people I know to try them out. I have an eight-year-old laptop which suits my purposes just fine, and I have no desire to trade it in for something with all of the latest bells and whistles. Same goes for my five-year-old smart phone. And don’t even get me started about TV’s.
However, I recently wandered down the rabbit hole known as artificial intelligence – specifically, the generation of images using AI. I quickly discovered that AI would be a great tool to enhance my writing experience. One of the first projects I undertook was the creation of AI-generated covers for Lightning in a Bottle and An Unwanted Alias. If you like, you can have a look at them – I’ve uploaded them to the stories.
I also got quite a bit of enjoyment from generating images of the characters in my stories – exactly as I see them in my mind - bringing them to life in yet another way. (Who knows – maybe at some point I’ll decide to share those as well.)
Which brings me to the point of this post. Recently, artificial intelligence gave a big boost to my writing in another way. In my last blog post, I mentioned that I was working on a detective-type story set in the future. I also had a partially written post-apocalyptic story that I felt was too complex, which had caused me to transfer it to the back burner.
Enter AI – or in this case, ChatGPT. On a whim, I decided to upload that second story, the complex post-apoc tale, to ChatGPT and asked it for feedback. I had to upload each chapter (there were four of them, plus a prologue) one by one. I was astonished at the quality of the feedback I received. Not only did that feedback cause my muse to kick back in, it also gave me a couple of excellent ideas for driving the story forward. I’ve now switched gears again and am working diligently on that post-apoc story. I now know exactly where I want to take that story and have a pretty good grasp on how to get there.
I’ve decided that the title of the story will be “Another Place In Time”. In an earlier blog post, I said that I would not post any chapters of a new story until that story was complete. However, I’ve re-thought that. I’ve discovered that constant feedback – whether from ChatGPT or from readers – is a crucial factor which drives my muse. Reader feedback – both positive and negative – plus the occasional collaborations on a few scenes, is what kept me motivated and focused over the two years it took me to create Lightning in a Bottle.
I anticipate this story to be quite a bit shorter than LIAB – I really can’t imagine generating an epic of that length again. However, it should be longer than An Unwanted Alias. I’m figuring something in the range of 25 to 30 chapters. Right now, I’m wrapping up Chapter 5. I figure that when I get into Chapter 7, I’ll start posting chapters to the site. I should have enough of a backlog by then. So, it shouldn’t be too much longer.
As I’m sure you all have, I’ve read quite a bit of speculation that artificial intelligence might bring about the end of civilization. But in this case, for this writer, it provided invaluable assistance.